Full details of this year’s pay award have only just been released. Consequently, the award will not be incorporated in the September salary payments but will be backdated to 1st September, 2018 when finalised.
The 3.5% rise touted by the DfE as being for “classroom teachers” is just for those on the unqualified teacher and main pay scales. The upper pay range, paid to more experienced classroom teachers, will only increase by 2% per cent, with Leadership pay ranges increasing by 1.5%
The implementation of the pay award remains the responsibility of schools so WwS will await instructions from payroll customers as to how they wish to manage the increases. Many schools will, no doubt, continue with their current arrangements and pay structure used in recent years.
It should be noted that the teacher pay scales only apply to local authority maintained schools. Academies can set their own pay scales but may of course keep the same structure as maintained schools.
Schools will have to pay for the first 1% from their existing budget, which is what they would have had to fund anyway had the public sector pay cap not been lifted. Beyond the 1% though, there is going to be additional money available for at least the next two years. This comes in the form of a teachers pay grant, worth £187 million in 2018-19 and £321 million in 2019-20. The precise arrangements for the distribution of this money is unclear.
When there is full clarity as to the arrangements for teachers pay, we will need schools to inform us of their pay structure and any increments that have been awarded.